Big

Thumbnail image reverently lifted from Island: a story of the Galápagos by Jason Chin

Where do you want to go? I will take you there slowly if you don’t push too hard. I have no room for your pushing. I have no time for your rushing.

I don’t want to be your enemy at all, but I will be if I have to. So stop pushing me please. It’s a lot just to be me here, without you trying to rip open the soil that I’m growing in.

Yes I’ve been buried in it, I know you haven’t been able to see me and it’s been driving you crazy with loss. I know. I know, I know you silly girl.

You don’t tend to trust taking things slow, and my roots have to grow before they can break apart the rocks. I am stronger than anything you know. I am a force of love asking you to grow. But you’ve got to give me some space to grow in please.

You know these notes are so blunt. You’re a heavy spade darling sometimes.

It’s the grief in you that makes you reckless when you open up my breast. I know what you’re feeling. I know your mountains of grief. I know the oceans reeling in you. I know you need relief.

Heavy hands, heavy hands, lying heavy on the land. Heavy hands, heavy on the land.

I hear your songs, every one of them. I’m here growing closer to you in body and form. Heavy hands, you’ve got heavy hands on the earth and a heavy breast. And a heavy heart full of dirt.

Heavy hands on the earth. You’re heavy with grief. You’re heavy woman, you’re heavy little girl. You’re heavy for the babies you’ve lost, and heavy for the world. You’re heavy hearted, heavy for the earth. You’re heavy and it hurts.

We can play the game where we pretend it’s about the things that show up on the surface, the details to take care of. But you and I know what’s at stake, you and I know your depths. You and I know what you’ve been through. You and I know what this is really about. You and I know the heaviness, you and I know the deeps.

We let you play the game that it is lighter. The game that it is lighter than it is. The game that you are smaller than you are. The game that you are younger than what you are. The game that you are shallower.

You can try all your life but we know what really happened. We know that you need to look away because of what really happened. We have so much time for you to take your time to get there.

You think it’s about these little lives. You think it’s about the lines around your eyes. We know you have to play games, we know, you know, we know you. We know you have to play games. And you can take your time with them, love.

This is the time where you open up to the many mansions and stories inside you. The chambers and your many lands. The world that you are keeper of. Your queendom you are keeper of.

You’re large, so large, and so much has happened. Take your time to get to the root of it, to get through it, to reassemble yourself.

It takes so long to get down to the truth of it.

I’ve been struggling and fighting for so long, just not to have to face it, how big I am. The incredible grief that I hold in me, it’s been too big to hold. I’ve had to hold it in pieces. I’ve had to hold it in pieces. You’ve had to hold me in pieces, too. I could only take it in pieces.

Ok so I know it’s not about those things that I was using to pull up to the surface, away from what I know to be so.

I know I’m not that small. I know I’m filled with spacious halls. I know I have many chambers in me. I know I have resonant chambers in me. To bring them all back together is a big job after all this time. It means no longer pretending.

Somewhere in this bigness I see my dignity. Somewhere in this bigness I see the incredible size of me. Somewhere in this bigness I understand the game I’ve played.

I don’t know if I’m more taken aback that I’m large or that i’m small. I don’t know if I’m more taken aback by the stories, or the space where there’s no story at all.

I keep trying to make some kind of sense of this. But I think it’s senseless. Maybe it’s better to admit it’s senseless…

It’s not senseless, it’s just overwhelming to you darling.

You don’t really have to push on through, there’s just a part that won’t let go. A part that won’t let you rest, that doesn’t want to give up. But you’re allowed to give up. You’re allowed to give up sometimes.